Indigenous Elders reeling from suicide deaths

Aboriginal people now make up 50 per cent of all suicides that take place in the Northern Territory. That's up from five percent 20 years ago and, for the Elders, the pain is unbearable, writes Keiren McLeonard.

The tragic waste of life that occurs when a young person commits suicide takes your breath away. In Indigenous communities, particularly across northern Australia, the people are gasping.

The pain and hurt being experienced by our young is being turned upon themselves.

Professor Pat Dudgeon

That's because of the massive increase in the level of self-harm and youth suicide.

Ten to 24-year-olds, mostly boys and young men, make up 80 per cent of all Indigenous suicides.

The older people's anguish is palpable and a report out today gives voice to Aboriginal Elders across northern Australia, from the Cape to the Kimberley who have never before witnessed such an epidemic of self-harm.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda calls it 'a problem that was close to non-existent a generation ago [that's] exploded into an epidemic that is devastating families and communities right across the top end of Australia'.

He says some of these communities have become places with some of the highest rates of youth suicide and self-harm in the world.

The report gives Indigenous Elders an opportunity to speak out about this unrelenting loss and the pain it leaves behind and to challenge the federal government to help save a generation.

The report says that despite all the good intentions, state and federal governments have not been able to stop the loss of life, and have instead been presiding over its increase.

Despite millions of dollars spent on anetwork of local suicide-prevention centres, in some parts of the Kimberley the rate is 100 times higher than the national average.

The 31 Elders, from places including Broome, North East Arnhem Land and the Central Desert, Maningrida and Cape York, believe that cross-cultural confusion and loss of cultural identity are the toxic ingredients in the confused reasoning that results in young people killing themselves.

All agree on the need for community-led programs that bring young people back to their roots, culture and country. And they believe they have a pivotal role to play.

The Elders say learning language and understanding culture are keys to surviving and then thriving, rather than top-down social and health services that are not effective in many remote parts of the country and have a limited life span because of funding changes.

Bardi Elder Lorna Hudson says when she was growing up, 'most of our education was on culture'.

'But when the missions were closed everyone was moved from their own environment, their homelands into one place, in town,' she says.

'Back in the old time, we never heard about suicide. Now it is very, very difficult to talk to the young people about culture and tradition.'

'There's no future in their eyes,' she says.

'They are so full of problems in their own selves and they haven't got a place where they can go to and sit down and talk.'

She says they are the vital bridge between the modern world and Aboriginal culture.

'They are the leaders of our communities, to whom we continue to rely on for guidance and counselling. There is no more urgent time to sit down and listen to our Elders than now,' says Professor Dudgeon.